


Wall Building and Other Basic Strategic Moves

by Nekhen



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Touch-Starved Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekhen/pseuds/Nekhen
Summary: Aziraphale has a sore back, and Madame Tracy has An Idea.Or: the one in which Aziraphale is a lonely bookseller with questionable friends and he’s quite ill-equipped to deal with a snippy masseuse who could really do with a little more manners (and a lot less sex-appeal).
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 103
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Juggling three stories in the same fandom at the same time is not a particularly sound strategy, but since my stuff tends to be rather long, it’s good to be able to move around a little from time to time.
> 
> That said, I truly hope you’ll like this story as much as the others. I love writing Aziraphale’s POV, and even if this story is turning out to be not quite as silly as I’ve first imagined it would be, I’m going to have lots of fun working on it. You can check out my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nekhen2/) account to be up to speed with my progress (or the whims of my Muse, more accurately).
> 
> Kudos and especially comments are the fuel that keeps my engines running, and they’ll be treated as the blessing they are <3

It had been Madame Tracy’s idea.

Of course it had. In retrospect, it could’ve hardly been anyone else’s.

The fateful day the idea had been first moved forward was a gloomy Monday, lost somewhere in the middle of a gloomier February. It was late afternoon, and the sky over London was heavy with clouds and already quite dark. Madame Tracy had come over for a few racy books about erotic bondage and the submissive mind on which Aziraphale had finally managed to get his hands a few days before, and since the weather had been rather awful throughout the entire afternoon, Aziraphale had felt perfectly justified in closing his shop a bit earlier than usual. They were now sitting in the back, sipping a cup of tea and chattering inanely about quirky customers. Aziraphale had had his fair share of odd ducks through the years, but Madame Tracy, what with her particular area of business, was in a league of her own.

“And then I said: ‘my dear, I’m sure Mr. Tompkins is quite a terrible fellow to deal with, and I do enjoy our little role-plays, but after going through half the people in your office I feel like you should probably talk to someone about this whole business.’ Perhaps it wasn’t my place to say anything, but I feared that I was doing more damage than good by that point, and I did feel responsible for the poor man. Either way, he never came back. I do hope he got some help, though.”

“I’m sure it was for the best, my dear,” Aziraphale comforted her. “What about another cup of tea?”

“Please. Your tea is absolutely delicious. You must tell me where you buy it.”

“Oh, but then you wouldn’t be coming back, and where would I be?” Aziraphale quipped playfully, as he poured tea for both. “I wouldn’t have anyone to complain to. No one wants to listen to an old librarian grumbling about rude customers and a sore back.”

“Forty-five is not old, my dear, not by a long shot. And plenty of people would love to keep you company, if you’d just stop wrinkling your nose at them.”

Aziraphale harrumphed at the unfairness of that statement (though he would absolutely deny later on of having ever done such a thing) and brought the steaming cup to his nose. He inhaled with a sigh the scent of a perfectly brewed Ceylon, before adding a judicious amount of sugar and milk.

“I’ll have you know that I do not wrinkle my nose at people. I just like them better when they stay out of my shop.”

Aziraphale didn’t go on to say that, to him, socialising felt like a titanic effort on a good day, and surely didn’t follow that up with a cheeky remark about how very few people were worth the effort anyway.

He’d tried, in the past, and it had always ended up in disaster. He’d thought for a long time the fault must lie with him, until he’d realised that it wasn’t really anyone’s fault–things were as they were, and since he actually liked being on his own and reading his books, he simply saw no reason anymore to try and change the status quo. And if he’d ensconced himself into his comfort zone so deeply throughout the years that now he couldn’t even make out its borders anymore, it was all for the best. It was called comfort zone for a reason, and in Aziraphale’s opinion wishing to remain there was simply a question of good common sense.

“Hmm,” mumbled Madame Tracy, as she poured a little milk into her own cup. “What about those fellows from the book club? You seemed to like them.”

He had liked them. He had liked them right up to the point in which they’d suggested Dan Brown as the author of the month for a sunny June one year before, after which he had still liked them, in a way, but they had surely not liked his opinions much anymore. Perhaps he should’ve kept a tighter lid on the contempt as he’d declared that if he’d wanted to have his brain excised and boiled in a pressure cooker, he would’ve just turned to daytime telly and called it a day. At least that was free.

“We had a difference of opinion.” Aziraphale took a sip of his tea, peering up at Madame Tracy with his best innocent look. “They were quite the sensitive lot, I’m afraid.”

“Young people can be quite touchy these days, I grant you that,” Madame Tracy sagely concurred. “But there surely must be other book clubs in the city? Perhaps less emotionally-charged ones?”

Aziraphale hummed to himself. He’d admittedly been bored, after he’d been asked not particularly politely to leave the club and never come back, and had dabbled here and there on the internet. He’d found Goodreads and forums about pretty much anything he could ever want to talk about. After spending the best part of the previous autumn shouting at people he’d never met, Aziraphale had eventually decided that he didn’t really want to hear anyone’s opinions about Jane Austen and Thackeray and the Brontë sisters, after all. His own were good enough as they were.

“Perhaps I’ll look into them, at some point,” he cautiously replied, since it wouldn’t do to let Madame Tracy in on the fact that he was turning into a grumpy hermit on the verge of drilling two holes into an empty milk carton and christening it Friday. “I’m not exactly in the mood for socialising right now, I’m afraid. Must be the weather.”

“Or maybe your sore back,” Madame Tracy innocently replied. “It can make one quite grumpy. I would know, my dear, with my knees.”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale chuckled. “But it can hardly be avoided, what with all those boxes that must be pushed here and there and books that must be organised. Someone has to look after the shelves, after all. Customers keep emptying them.”

Madame Tracy arched her carefully plucked brows, as she brought the teacup to her perfectly made-up lips.

“People have no manners these days.”

“Wouldn’t I know,” Aziraphale replied, electing to ignore the sarcasm. “Perhaps I should talk to my doctor, get a treatment of some sort. It’s been getting a little uncomfortable of late.”

“Doctors are all crooks,” Madame Tracy declared, with the surety of a woman who knows what she’s on about. “I have a better idea.”

“Oh?”

“I know someone. He can be a little snippy at times, but he’s the best at what he does.”

“And what would that be?” Aziraphale cautiously asked. He was familiar enough with the sort of people Madame Tracy knew (which was _all_ sorts of people, from saints to sinners, as one might say) to find that a little wariness wasn’t exactly uncalled for.

Luckily for him, Madame Tracy did not take offence at his sceptical tone. She did shoot a meaningful look at him, though.

“Therapeutic massages. I think he’s studying physiotherapy or something like that.”

Oh. A student, then.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure about that. He did not particularly fancy the idea of getting close and personal to a kid barely out of high school. And a _rude_ one at that, according to Madame Tracy.

“I don’t know. I’m not comfortable with strangers.”

He didn’t add that he hadn’t actually been touched by anyone at all since Gabriel had dumped his sorry arse in a ditch five years before, though he didn’t doubt that Madame Tracy could do the math herself quite nicely, if she wanted to. They’d been friends for almost twenty years, and she knew what went on in his shop and his flat (which had been absolutely nothing for the past five years, but still) better than his neighbours.

“I think it’d be good for you. At the very least you’ll be talking to someone that’s not me or that lovely girl that keeps coming here for books on magic, what’s her name again...?”

“Anathema,” Aziraphale automatically replied, not quite sure what was going on anymore.

“Anathema. Such a wonderful name. She must be very proud of it.” Madame Tracy sipped the last of her tea, then smoothed down her colourful dress and stood up. Aziraphale followed her up on his feet like a mechanical doll. “I’ll give Crowley your number, if that’s quite all right with you, and then he can take it from there.”

“...Crowley?”

“Yes. He does house calls, so you won’t even have to get out of your flat. And he’s very fair with his hourly rates. I think you’ll like him.”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t think this is a good idea...” Aziraphale tried to protest, only to be well and thoroughly pinned by Madame Tracy’s piercing gaze.

“And why would that be?”

Aziraphale hesitated. He knew that Madame Tracy wouldn’t let the issue rest until she had a good explanation, and although they were friends, he didn’t feel quite like telling her that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be touched by a stranger, or would be able to bear the intimacy without either throwing up or begging for more. He didn’t want the first person to put his hands on him after so long to be someone that was doing it for money, even if it wasn’t sexual at all. And a _kid_, at that? It would bring the entire thing to brand new levels of uncomfortable. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass himself in front of someone barely out of their teens.

But he couldn’t say any of that out loud. Especially to someone else. It was difficult enough to spell it all so clearly into his own mind.

“I just wouldn’t feel comfortable with a stranger in my house, right now,” he eventually managed to push out. He hadn’t known it until he said it, but that was also the truth. After five years alone, he wasn’t sure he wanted to have anyone stamping into his own space. He’d become quite protective of it.

Oh, perhaps Madame Tracy _did_ have a point.

There was sympathy in her eyes, as she looked up at him through her thick fake lashes. Aziraphale wasn’t sure how he felt about that sentiment. Grateful, perhaps. And perhaps a little ashamed.

“I think he won’t mind a few sessions in his own flat, if you ask him. I’m not sure where he lives, exactly, but it shouldn’t be too far from here.”

“I wouldn’t presume to inconvenience him that way...”

“Nonsense, Aziraphale,” Madame Tracy brusquely cut him off. “There is no need to worry about that. If he doesn’t want to do it, he’ll tell you so. Crowley is not really the sort to let himself be inconvenienced, of that you can be sure.”

Aziraphale still wasn’t persuaded, but he was also not very good at holding his ground, when people really insisted. And he most assuredly did not want to pursue that topic of conversation any further. He’d been edging on the verge of uncomfortable since the matter had been brought up, and he’d already shared far more than he felt at ease with. He feared that if he kept discussing the topic, he’d be revealing things that he’d really rather keep to himself.

He didn’t have to say yes after all, he reasoned. He could talk to the man (the _kid_, good gracious) and then decline the offer directly to him. It would be embarrassing, yes, but still far better than explaining to one of the very few friends he had left how pathetically lonely he actually was.

“If you’re sure about that,” Aziraphale eventually capitulated, with the same enthusiasm he’d used to touch a tabloid that by mistake had found its way to his shop a few years before. “I suppose one phone call won’t do much harm.”

“That’s the spirit,” Madame Tracy cooed, and even if he’d known her half her life, Aziraphale would’ve been hard-pressed to say whether she’d actually meant it or if there was a trace of sarcasm in there. She carefully slipped her books into her oversized bag and tottered her way back into the shop. “He’s not very good at calling people back, so I’m not sure when he’ll reach out to you. But I’ll give him a call tonight, first thing. Let me know how it goes.”

The shameless gossip. Aziraphale chuckled to himself, a little more at ease, as he escorted her to the door.

“Will do. Mind how you go, now.”

Madame Tracy waved at him with one of her perfectly manicured hands, before disappearing behind a corner.

Aziraphale closed the door and very pointedly didn’t lend the entire business another single thought until, eventually, the entire business took it upon itself to yank Aziraphale’s attention back where it belonged.

* * *

Aziraphale was busy with inventory, when the phone rang.

It was a Sunday, this time, but the day was just as wet and cloudy and generally miserable as it’d been the Monday before. Aziraphale had woken up a little moody that morning (which had absolutely nothing to do with his lower back taking overnight the bold decision of acting up and spreading a low-grade ache up to his side), and had decided to do something he usually enjoyed to cheer himself up–namely, going around his shop to bask in the massive stack of books he hoarded with the excuse of organising the stock and keeping everything up to notch.

He was so focused on his task that it took him a long moment to realise that the annoying chiming sound was coming from somewhere in his shop, and that meant that someone was trying to reach out to him. Although that alone wouldn’t have been enough to yank him away from the list he was perusing, the unfamiliar ringtone wasn’t that of his landline, but of the loathed mobile phone that he normally did his best to ignore. It was one of those fancy new models that snapped open with a flick of the wrist (Anathema had told him that only Aziraphale would call that specific model new, once she’d finished laughing herself hoarse, but Aziraphale wasn’t going to bend himself backwards to follow those despicable trends in technology), and Aziraphale had very pointedly given that number only to his sister, Madam Tracy and Anathema, since he wasn’t going to let anyone else bother him past office hours if he could help it.

Therefore, he assumed that if anyone had bothered to call him on his mobile at all, that meant it was quite an emergency, and he scrambled to his backroom in a flurry to get to it. The mobile had been rotting on the couch long enough that the cushions had been clearly trying to swallow it up at some point, but after some quite angry tugging Aziraphale managed to extract the blasted thing from its prison and flip it open.

“Hello? Don’t hang up! It’s Aziraphale,” he panted into the speaker, a little out of breath.

He was met with a silence long enough that Aziraphale wondered whether he’d been too slow, and the caller had actually hung up before he could reach them.

The voice almost startled him.

“Hullo,” it drawled, low and smoky like perfectly-aged scotch. “Aziraphale, eh? ‘s Crowley. Madame Tracy gave me your number.”

Aziraphale blinked at his wine rack, completely at a loss. He hadn’t seen Madame Tracy since their fateful conversation six days prior, and hadn’t really thought about the entire masseuse quandary after that. He’d actually completely forgot about it, sure that if he only kept it out of his mind, the whole problem would go away on its own. He’d clearly been mistaken.

“Ah. Er. Hello,” he spluttered. “Yes. Madame Tracy told me about... about you.”

It wasn’t exactly his smoothest phone call, but it was hardly his fault. No one had ever taken the time to teach him the right protocol to decline masseuse services.

Oh dear, that sounded way dirtier than it had any right to be.

“She did, didn’t she?” Crowley hummed, sounding bored. He had to be what, eighteen, nineteen years old? That was really a gravelly voice for a kid that age. Aziraphale did hope he wasn’t ruining it with chain-smoking or whatever they called it nowadays. “Listen. I got a free spot next week, Wednesday evening, around eight. One hour, back massage, sixty quid. Sounds good?”

“Ah, Wednesday? I’m not sure...”

“I’m pretty busy, so it’s either next Wednesday or the week after,” Crowley interrupted him, quite rudely. “Madame Tracy told me that you’d rather come here for the session. I don’t usually do that, but since you’re friends with the old lady I’ll make an exception.”

“Old lady?” Aziraphale sputtered. Madame Tracy had barely seven years on him! She wasn’t old! But then again, to a kid that age Aziraphale probably seemed ancient too. It was a pretty depressing thought.

“Yeah. Madame Tracy,” Crowley repeated, very slowly, as though he wasn’t sure Aziraphale was quite all there.

Aziraphale puffed and huffed to himself. That Crowley really seemed quite the ill-mannered young man. Aziraphale was feeling less and less inclined to meet him, and even less so to have his hands on him. He didn’t need a judgmental kid to take a good look at him and pin him down as an old bat together with Madame Tracy and half the population of the Greater London.

“I must say, my dear fellow, I really don’t think that’s a good idea...”

“Why the hell not?”

Aziraphale started at the sharpness in that husky voice. He hadn’t expected his harried remark to be met with that kind of aggression.

“Well. I-I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You’re not imposing. If you had, I wouldn’t have called you in the first place.”

Madame Tracy had been on the money about that, then.

Aziraphale considered a different approach. A kid that age... he wouldn’t be living alone, would he? London was expensive, and he was a student of some sort, Madame Tracy had said. Oh goodness, what if he was living with fifteen other people? Was Aziraphale supposed to get into _that_ half naked and vulnerable? He thought not. The mere idea was making his stomach drop to his knees, and he swallowed down a wave of nausea.

“What about your... your fellow tenants? I’m sure they won’t appreciate a stranger roaming their place.”

“My what?” Crowley grumbled. “I live alone.”

Oh. That was... well, that was quite shocking, to be completely fair. Aziraphale couldn’t fathom which kind of student could possibly be able to afford living alone in London while pursuing a costly degree. Was Crowley into far shadier business than giving back rubs to strangers on call? Aziraphale wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved in something like _that_. But he was intrigued. Madame Tracy wouldn’t just push him into the open (well, relatively open, from what he’d heard so far) arms of a barely-legal gigolo, or at least he hoped so. There was just something in all that that didn’t quite add up.

Aziraphale had clearly taken too much time to ponder the situation, since Crowley’s vexed voice rang once again through the line to prod him along.

“Well? You still there?”

“Oh! Oh, yes. I’m-I’m here.”

“Lovely,” Crowley said, without meaning it in the slightest. “Wednesday evening, then? Eight o’clock?”

“I-I-”

“I’ll give you the address. You got a pen?”

Aziraphale needed time. Unfortunately for him, Crowley didn’t seem particularly amenable to give it to him.

“Yes, I _do_, but-”

“Write this down, then.”

Aziraphale did have a pen, and paper, since he was holding the inventory list he’d been pouring on when the world still made some sense, and by then his brain was much too confused to do anything other than simply follow orders. He scrabbled down the address Crowley gave him, and upon request obediently read it back.

“Good,” Crowley grumbled. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

And then he hang up.

Aziraphale was left there with his list, his pen, his phone, and the sneaky certainty that he’d just been bullied by some nineteen-year-old into a massage session he really, _really_ did not want to have.

_Goodness. That did not go well, not well at all_, he thought.

What was he supposed to do, now?


	2. Chapter 2

Much to Aziraphale’s dismay, the following three days offered no answer to his question, nor featured a miraculous solution to his problem. He felt quite put out by that ungracious lack of cooperation, especially since he’d done his part and tried everything he could think of to bring forth a speedy resolution. He’d rather dutifully employed his energy and wits to fret quite ineffectually over the whole conundrum during the first day, coming solely up with the rather pointed conclusion (and perhaps a trifle childish, but that was quite beside the mark, surely) that he Really Did Not Want To Go; he’d tried keeping his mind off it with his books and his shop and (good gracious) even his customers, just as ineffectually, during the second; and he’d ended up sullenly picking at it like at a scabbing wound by the third.

He wasn’t even all that sure about the reason he was so strenuously opposed to the idea, to be completely fair. His efforts at keeping himself busy had included polishing shelves that had last seen a duster when the Zeppelins were floating over London, followed by pushing books back and forth, which of course had done very little in the way of improving his sore back. It’d got so bad that he’d started to wonder whether lying down and allowing someone else to rub the ache away would truly be so atrocious, and the only reason he’d kept toying with the idea of cancelling his appointment was the fact that he’d been bullied into it, which he disliked, and that the last thing he wanted was to deal with a pushy teen suffering from a distinctive lack of manner.

Coincidentally, that was also the reason he’d been prodding and pocking at the whole pesky thing with a very long stick, instead of grabbing the bull by the horns (an interesting American expression that was usually way too forceful for him, but that at times fit the occasion like a glove) and simply explaining the young man the situation. Aziraphale didn’t do well with direct confrontations, and his rather pitiful attempts at holding his ground against a boy barely acquainted with his own A-levels didn’t really need a repeated act.

By the third day, however, the entire dilemma had turned into a moot point. It was too late to cancel with any hope of retaining some good grace, and just because Crowley was a rude young man, it didn’t mean that Aziraphale would be amenable to sink to the same depths. He had no other choice but to march up to Crowley’s house, get what he’d been more or less unwillingly roped into purchasing, pay him, and hopefully never see him again. Madame Tracy would be satisfied that he’d at least tried out her suggestion, Crowley would get some money out of it (though Aziraphale was still fuzzy about whether Crowley actually needed the money or not, being the only student he’d ever heard of being able to afford a flat all to himself in central London), and Aziraphale would hopefully be left alone to hoard his books and live out the rest of his life as a cranky hermit bereft of love and human company.

Yes, Aziraphale was well aware he was being rather dramatic, but since he was about to meet close and personal a particularly unpleasant young man, he didn’t give a fig about that.

He almost considered calling Anathema, hoping that, as a student herself, she could give him some valuable insight into dealing with a rude teenage boy who’d clearly never been taught growing up that manners separated the gentleman from the beasts, but then he thought better of it. She was too busy to have an old bookseller with no backbone whatsoever bothering her for some minor inconvenience.

After a whole afternoon spent fretting and worrying and scaring customers away (which wasn’t such a bad thing, all in all), Wednesday evening came with a surprising bout of nice weather, as far as nice weather went in the Isles. The sky over the city was already too dark to make out whether it was overcast or not, but at least it wasn’t raining. Aziraphale was even able to make out the odd star in spite of the light pollution, and Soho’s busy streets were lively and familiar in the steady stream of tourists and locals alike going in and out of pubs and restaurants or simply enjoying London’s night life. Although Aziraphale did not particularly appreciate crowded places as a rule, being surrounded by so many happy people obviously enjoying their evening helped a little to patch up his dismal mood.

Since the weather was nice and Crowley’s house was in walking distance from his shop, Aziraphale decided to walk there. He didn’t really want to share a cubicle with a nosy taxi driver, and he hoped the fresh air and the easy stroll would soothe his frayed nerves. It’d been a bit of a shock to find out that Crowley lived in _Mayfair_, of all places, but since nothing about him seemed to make any sense whatsoever, Aziraphale had taken that piece of information with the same kind of easy trust he’d have used to handle radioactive ore and filed it away in a folder he never planned on opening again after that night. The boy was a student and a professional masseuse living by himself in one of London’s most affluent districts, with the Ritz in walking distance, and upper-class enough to have amongst its former residents prime ministers, famous writers and ambassadors. Aziraphale felt like he’d dived into the white rabbit’s lair head first and was still struggling to come out.

He was so busy trying to make sense out of the whole thing that he got lost twice, but he refused to ask for directions, since nine people out of ten would turn out to be tourists without a single clue about London’s planimetry, and possibly without a single English word in their vocabulary.

(Not that Aziraphale could blame them, he’d gone on more than one trip to France for a taste of their incredible food carrying very little French in his pocket that didn’t involve backed goods of some kind.)

When eventually the internet research he’d done at home and the scrabbled piece of paper he’d been holding for dear life paid off, he found himself in front of a huge apartment complex, old enough to have seen Queen Victoria’s carriage roll down the street and so perfectly maintained that Aziraphale and his admittedly sporadic bouts of care and renovation for his old bookshop could barely hold a candle.

Aziraphale boggled at it. It was a huge, beastly thing, built entirely in red bricks and with delicately arched windows that looked big enough to run from floor to ceiling on every floor. The warm yellow hue of the streetlamps did little to hide how elegant the complex was, though Aziraphale had no doubt that it would seem even more imposing in daylight.

A chill slithered down his spine. Whatever he’d been up to, a student had no business whatsoever living in a place like that. It looked like a five-star hotel, for crying out loud.

Only whatever was left of his manners kept him from bolting. Aziraphale walked nervously up to the main entrance, expecting to be seized at any point and demanded an explanation about what on Earth he thought he was doing in a place like that so late in the evening, but the street was remarkably quiet. The building wasn’t close enough to any major attraction to warrant the usual stream of tourists running about, and apparently an anonymous Wednesday evening wasn’t posh enough to lure the Mayfair’s neighbourhood out of their pretentious homes.

There was an ordered row of doorbells under the house number. Each doorbell had a correspondent silver plate, on which a name was carefully engraved in a flowing script and painted black.

Aziraphale squinted through the list.

There were at least a dozen of people in there, and they clearly didn’t believe in printed characters that didn’t look like they’d been written with a fountain pen running ink all over the place. He lamented having left his glasses at home, but he hadn’t foreseen that his appointment with a shady masseuse would include a visual acuity test.

Eventually, he found the name he was looking for.

_Anthony J. Crowley._

Aziraphale realised that he hadn’t spared a single thought about whether Crowley was a name, a surname, or some kind of stage name the like of which so many bebop singers fancied those days. He still wasn’t completely sure about the legitimacy of a name such as _Crowley_ (though that was uncharitable and a little pot-calling-the-kettle-black from someone who bore the name of _Aziraphale_), but now at least he had some guiding light in the maze of social conventions involved in approaching a stranger for the first time, and that reassured him some.

Aziraphale realised that he’d been standing there for at least five minutes, toying with his inane thoughts while Crowley was left waiting for him, and that was unacceptable.

_Stop being such a silly old fool_, he sternly reprimanded himself. Then he straightened his coat, fluffed his scarf, and pressed the doorbell.

Nothing happened, at first, and nothing continued to happen for a time long enough that Aziraphale was seriously considering turning on his heels and leaving (with something he’d deny with complete outrage to be relief), when a smoky voice that Aziraphale recognised instantly crackled through the speaker.

“Yeah?”

Oh. No greetings, no name, no nothing. Just that: _Yeah_.

Manners had truly gone to the gutters those days. This Crowley was lucky that Aziraphale still remembered his.

“Good evening, Mr. Crowley,” Aziraphale greeted him, very politely, and not superciliously in the slightest. “This is Aziraphale. I do hope I’m not intruding, but I have an appointment. Eight o’clock?”

“If you have an appointment, why the hell would you be intruding?” Crowley grumbled. “Come up. Third floor. Lift’s on the left, if you don’t feel like walking.”

Then the line went dead, just as the double glass doors opened with a buzz. Aziraphale was so flabbergasted by that blatant and impenitent rudeness that he almost missed his cue, but he luckily recovered before the gate locked up on him. He really didn’t want to ring Crowley again and explain. He had an inkling those manners wouldn’t make any sort of improvement the second time around.

Aziraphale pushed the door open and slipped into a wide, silent hall, all delicate arches and red bricks. There was indeed a lift on the left, but Aziraphale was feeling testy enough to take the stairs just because Crowley had suggested it. That resulted in him sweating and puffing his way up, as it usually happened when he took foolish decisions based only on his wounded pride, but eventually Aziraphale reached the third floor.

The stairs landed him on a long corridor, and Aziraphale had to examine six little nameplates affixed to the same number of doors before finding the right one. It was right in front of the lift, which made Aziraphale feel even sillier than he already did, and it had a snake-shaped handle. Aziraphale had no idea why a masseuse would feel the need to shape his door-handle into a snake, of all things, but he was beyond shock, beyond questions by now.

He took off his scarf and fedora, hoping he didn’t look as flustered as he felt, and pressed the doorbell.

He’d barely lifted his finger from the button that the door was swung open, and someone regarded him with eyes of such a light shade of brown that they almost looked like amber.

In the split of a second that followed, in which each of them took a moment to take the measure of the other, Aziraphale had jotted down quite a few important points into his mind about this elusive Mr. Crowley.

First: he seemed even less approachable in person than he had on the phone.

Second: he was most assuredly _not_ a nineteen-year-old.

And third: he was one of the most devastatingly attractive men he’d ever seen.

Aziraphale had no idea what his face must have looked like, but Crowley’s contemptuous frown wasn’t exactly the harbinger of pleasant times to come. Aziraphale caught Crowley’s gaze running up and down his frame a couple of times, as though he couldn’t quite make sense of him, and eventually settle on his face with an even deeper frown. He didn’t seem to like much what he was seeing, and wasn’t _that_ a depressing thought.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was struggling to keep his wits about him. Crowley looked to be well into his thirties, if not a little older, lean like a whip and with a shock of red hair so bright that Aziraphale almost didn’t notice the thin streaks of grey at his temples. He was wearing some sort of black pants that looked painted on him and a black T-shirt with some logo that Aziraphale had no hope to recognise. He had sinewy, strong-looking arms, and long-fingered hands that Aziraphale realised through a daze would be very soon stroking his skin. He was barefoot, with both fingernails and toenails coated in the same shade of chipped black varnish, and was distressingly gorgeous.

As if all that staring wasn’t embarrassing enough, it was Crowley who broke the silence first.

“Well. Aziraphale, is it? You’re on time, I like that. Come on in.”

Crowley took a step back, keeping the door open in obvious invitation. Aziraphale tried to string two sentences together, but it was a lost battle. His brain had screeched into a halt the moment every expectation he’d fostered about the man had shattered onto the ground, and was now running in circles like an old gramophone at the end of a record. He couldn’t think of anything to say, even less any course of action that could get him past that frozen moment spent standing like an idiot by his new masseuse’s threshold, shamelessly ogling him like an uncultured lout . He was well and truly stuck, so he might as well follow instructions.

It took Aziraphale everything he had to shake himself out of that wide-eyed stupor, but he guessed that Crowley’s patience with fools wasn’t going to be any way better in person. He took a hesitant step forward, then another, egged on by what looked almost like a smirk on Crowley’s face, and then he was crossing his threshold and Crowley was closing the door behind him.

The click of the lock felt like a slap on his face. He was trapped, now. Crowley regarded him with a lopsided grin (it was a grin, this time, Aziraphale was sure of it) and preceded him through the foyer. Aziraphale was powerless to do anything but stare at the swing of those hips as Crowley showed him the way. They were thin and bony and Aziraphale wondered what it’d feel like to wrap his hand around them, feeling the razor-sharp shape of those hipbones against his palms.

He was shocked by the strength of that fantasy, or by how badly he wanted to follow through. Aziraphale did have quite a filthy imagination, when push came to shove, but he usually restrained himself in front of strangers he’d just met. It was one thing replaying a particularly vigorous bout of sex with one of his past partners on a lazy Sunday afternoon, another thing entirely wondering whether the man swaggering in front of him would move his hips quite so enticingly whilst squirming on his lap. It was inappropriate, it was offensive, and it displayed a staggering lack of manners from someone who had always prided himself on being appropriate on every occasion. The man was a professional, for goodness’ sake. Aziraphale ought to be ashamed of himself.

Aziraphale tore his eyes away from that lovely arse and kept it resolutely at shoulder level. Not that those were any less attractive than any other part belonging to Crowley, but at least with his gaze fixed there he noticed things like the sultry curls of his red hair, kept at shoulder-length, instead of the sinful sway of those hips. Improvements.

Aziraphale was so focused on his internal struggles that he barely had any wherewithal left to look where Crowley was taking him. The flat seemed quite spacious, but there was so little furniture lying about that Aziraphale couldn’t rightly tell whether it was actually a big apartment or just so empty that it merely looked the part. The huge windows Aziraphale had spied from the street were covered by thick drapes, running all the way from the high ceiling to the floor. Despite the antique look of the building complex, the rooms seemed new, almost shiny, with flawless wooden panels covering the floors and walls painted of a stark, almost aseptic white.

The only splash of colour in the entire place seemed to be the room towards which his host was leading him. It was rather wide, with a massage table dead on centre and surrounded on every side by the most luscious potted plants Aziraphale had ever seen in his entire life. There was an entire forest of them, made by smaller plants and flowers displayed on shelves and a few pieces of furniture and enormous rubber plants shooting up as tall as the wide windows, their vivid greed casting a shine under the bright ceiling lights. The massage bed looked rather out of place in the middle of all that, like a modern ruin being slowly swallowed by the encroaching jungle.

There was a small chair in a corner, nearly swamped by the leafy branches. Crowley pulled it up, seizing the rim of the straight back into his fists and leaning his weight a bit on it. The gesture made his lean arms pop up, the shape of his sinewy biceps pushing from under the skin.

“Madame Tracy said you had problems with your back,” he said, brusque and businesslike. “Upper back? Lower back? Shoulders?”

“L-lower back,” Aziraphale stammered, before he could think better of it.

Crowley tilted his head a little.

“All right. Any allergies I should be aware of?”

“Allergies?”

“Yes. I’m going to use essential oils. Do you have any allergies?”

“I... no, not that I know of.”

“Hm. The oils I normally use are quite diluted, so you shouldn’t have any trouble, but if you feel uncomfortable or itchy at any time I’d like to know.”

Aziraphale could do that. Simple enough.

“All right.”

A beat, as Crowley seized him up again. There was something subtly unnerving in that stare, a cool, stony sort of sharpness. It made Aziraphale nervous, which quite defeated the purpose of a relaxing massage, if he could say so. It didn’t seem a particularly sound business strategy. Or perhaps Crowley resented having a stranger being shoved into his home by a pushy acquaintance, who knew. Either way, Aziraphale found himself tensing up and fidgeting under that steady gaze, like the foolish, fussy librarian that he was.

Then, finally, the tension broke. Crowley let go of the chair and sauntered over, stretching out his hand, palm up.

“You can give me your coat. I’ll hang it by the front door while you get comfortable.”

“Comfortable?” Aziraphale numbly repeated, handing Crowley his scarf and fedora and obediently getting to work on the thick buttons of his coat. He felt too confused and out of place to do anything as bold as making an independent decision, and way too grateful for the instructions he was given to consider something as outrageous as not following them.

“Yes. You can leave your clothes on the chair and use the stool to climb onto the bed. I’ll be back in a few minutes with a blanket.”

Aziraphale froze, like a tit, in the act of handing his coat over.

“Clothes?” he spat out, struggling to keep his voice even. He had known, of course, that such a moment was bound to come, but he’d pushed the notion so far into his mind that he’d forgotten all about it.

“Yes.” Crowley was staring at him with a tilted head, bright eyes searching his face. “Only if you’re comfortable with that, of course. You can keep them on, if you’d rather, though the massage will most likely be less effective.”

It made Aziraphale angry, all of a sudden, that unwanted, garish display of vulnerability. Showing that he was uncomfortable with it, with nudity, with touch, was just as good as an admission. It was nothing less than tearing down the veil until only bleeding flesh remained, vibrant and lurid and open to every passing gaze.

“It’s fine,” he answered, words coming out clipped and sharp, like the tapping of hard heels onto the pavestone. “Frome the waist up, I presume?”

“Hm. And your belt. You don’t have to take off your trousers, but I’ll have to lower them over your hips.”

Aziraphale firmly refused to think about that. He firmly refused to think about anything at all as he looked away, struggling to keep a humiliated flush from spreading from his neck to his cheeks.

“Fine.”

He could feel Crowley’s keen gaze brushing his downturned face like fingertips, until the man finally seemed to have mercy on him and looked away.

“I’ll be back,” he said, something softening a bit in his lowered voice. Aziraphale didn’t look up, listening to the rustling sound of Crowley’s bare feet shuffling across the floor as he forced his reluctant body under control.

_It’s just a massage, you daft old man._

He ignored the way his hands were shaking as he gathered the golden chain of his stopwatch and slipped it into his pocket, before unbuttoning his waistcoat. He was wounding himself up over nothing. Plenty of people got a massage without having a meltdown, and at least there was no nineteen-year-old witnessing to such mortifying display of foolishness. He was well aware that older age did not necessarily bring any increased understanding for human suffering than teenage years, but he elected to ignore that, just as he irritably ignored the thought of being in need of such understanding, or sympathy, or pity of any kind. He dropped rather dramatically his waistcoat on the chair, then went back to straighten it up before moving onto his shirt.

He was down to his undershirt and trousers when Crowley came back.

“Oh,” Crowley said, taking him in with nothing more than a blink before politely looking away. “I’m sorry. I can wait elsewhere, while you finish.”

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale said, more sharply than he’d meant to. “I’m not going to chase you out of your own rooms.”

The undershirt clung to his skin in a way that left very little to the imagination, and Aziraphale felt a flare of righteous anger at how uncomfortable he was. He’d eaten a bit more sweets than he was supposed to, perhaps, and got a little more sedentary than what was strictly healthy after Gabriel had left him, but he liked the way he was. He hated being made to feel like he ought not to, even if Crowley was doing nothing of the sort.

Madame Tracy was truly right. He’d been isolating himself a bit too much, if he’d lost the ability to take criticism in stride and shrug it off his shoulders like fog if he chose to.

“I’ll set everything up, then,” Crowley said, startlingly gentle.

Aziraphale felt a bit as though he should resent being handled with such delicacy, but he was too rattled and tired to reject kindness. He deflated, suddenly and dramatically, nervousness sapping up all the energy he had left. He pulled off his undershirt and unbuckled his belt, as Crowley folded a warm-looking blanket over the back of the chair and bustled about. Aziraphale placed his well-worn shoes under some luscious branch and thumbed free the first button of his trousers, though he decided to leave the zip alone for the time being.

He was about to step onto the stool when a curtain of soft dripping sounds spread suddenly into the room. He couldn’t help but glance at Crowley with a raised brow, nerves making him a bit louder, a bit bolder than usual.

“Raindrops?” he asked, before remembering that he was half naked and exposed. He climbed onto the table and rushed to hide his belly.

“Rainforest sounds, actually,” Crowley replied, the hint of a smirk in his smokey voice. “You don’t seem the sort of man who would appreciate the Velvet Underground, so I’ve decided to compromise.”

“It’s... nice,” Aziraphale mumbled, fumbling about as he decided where to put his arms. It _was_ nice, actually. The soft wild sounds worked quite well with the tiny forest that Crowley had grown into his own flat.

“Glad you think so.” The hint of sarcasm rang quite clearly in Crowley’s voice, this time, but it was too amused to be confrontational, and Aziraphale couldn’t really take it personally. “I’d like to start, now, if you’re all settled.”

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale quickly answered. The poor man didn’t deserve to stay up until late in the evening because his client couldn’t quite make up his mind about getting a bloody massage.

Aziraphale pressed his face in the hole carved into the headrest, feeling a bit as though the bed was trying to swallow him whole, and willed his body to relax. The table was narrow, but remarkably sturdy, and the soft navy-blue towel spread under his front was surprisingly comfortable

A gentle weight settled onto his legs (the fleece blanket, no doubts), then Crowley’s hands were onto his flanks. There was a triple layer made of his pants, his pressed trousers and Crowley’s blanket between those elegant palms and his bare skin, but Aziraphale felt the pressure of the touch nevertheless, like an electrical discharge sizzling up his spine.

It had been so long. So long.

“I’m going to lower your trousers a bit now. Just a heads-up.”

Aziraphale had exactly a moment to wonder if the waistline of his trousers was loose enough to be pushed down, then he felt the curve of his arse being freed to the cool air of the room and Crowley’s clever hands tucking the blanket right under the taut rim. Aziraphale’s heart leapt into his chest at the thought of being so exposed, of Crowley seeing not only his bare back but down to the cleft of his buttocks, and his skin broke into goosebumps at the feather-like touch of fingers so low.

He felt, more than glimpsed, Crowley walk all the way up to the headrest. It was difficult to settle between keeping his eyes closed and open, his body fighting his every attempt at letting go and forcing alertness on him. He could see the painted toes of Crowley’s naked feet under him, slender and pale.

“I’ll start with my bare hands, without oil, to warm you up,” Crowley informed him, voice soft but with the mechanical cadence of a sentence used a tad too often. Then he pressed his palms against Aziraphale’s shoulders, pushing slightly, and Aziraphale felt something old and slumbering shiver back to light at the contact.

He’d forgotten. It’d been too long, and he’d forgotten. How could he forget?

He squeezed his eyes shut, breath catching. Crowley’s hands roamed down his back, stroking and pressing and _touching_, touching everywhere, reaching dormant nerve endings and igniting them like fairy lights. A push here, a squeeze there. The warmth, the firmness of the contact, the dizzying feeling of being so close to someone else, to perceive their presence, their existence, against his very flesh. The poetry of touch, sinful and electric and lovely, so very lovely, tumbling down his skin.

It was too shocking, too _good_ for Aziraphale to be self-conscious anymore. He felt a stab of pleasure so deep that it wasn’t even sexual, animal pleasure, instinctive and powerful and all-encompassing, skidding down his spine as Crowley reached low, bending almost enough to press his lower belly against Aziraphale’s head as his thumbs dug into the aching flesh of Aziraphale’s buttocks. Aziraphale could smell him, the scent of fabric softener and aftershave and generic soap and tobacco, the scent of bare skin, violent and pervading and overpowering. It made him _hungry_, all of a sudden, that scent, so different from the dusty smell of his books, from the sweaty tang of his customers, from the delicate whiff of incense lingering on Anathema’s hair and the strong floral perfume coming off Madame Tracy’s skin in waves. It made him think of sex.

He missed sex, he realised, like an epiphany, sudden and unexpected and utterly underwhelming in its blatancy. He’d forgotten that too, how _good_ it felt, having someone else’s hands roaming his body, fisting his hair, playing with his balls. He’d always loved sex, glutton as he was for each and every earthly pleasure, but after Gabriel he’d let himself go, made himself forget. Easier that way. Less painful. He’d been with Gabriel long enough by then that the thought of putting himself out there had been more daunting and frankly distasteful than exciting. He’d liked flirting just fine when he was younger, but the older he got, the less thrilling, less novel the entire game had become. A dreary repetition of universally understood moves, parroted in an endless row of pubs and bars and shops and restaurants over and over and over, exhausted and exhausting.

But sex. Oh, sex had been worth the tiresome dance of forced socialising, of trying again and again, facing rejection, enduring boredom. He’d always meant to look for someone else, after Gabriel, but weeks had become months, months had become years, and slowly, quietly, everything that made a relationship worthwhile had started to fade into the background, his complacent present to shine just a bit brighter.

And there he was, now, five years later, remembering with bristling violence how much he liked being touched while a stranger he hadn’t even wanted to meet in the first place was digging his heels in Aziraphale’s aching sides. A _gorgeous_ stranger. With bony hips and painted nails.

It was with a distant, trickling sort of consternation that he realised his cock was hardening, his skin breaking into goosebumps as Crowley traced in a loopy swipe the shape of his arms, his shoulders.

_How reproachable, how positively depraved of you._

Nothing better than experiencing a breakthrough while getting a stiffy from a touch that had been paid for and offered by a stranger that was only doing his job, and that job did _not_ include providing lonely booksellers with sexual gratification.

“I’ll apply some oil, now,” Crowley softly informed him, right above his head. “I’m going to warm it up between my hands first, so you won’t jump straight off the bed.”

Aziraphale tensed up immediately, as the steady touch of those wonderful hands disappeared from his skin. What was he even doing? He’d barely wanted to go, barely wanted to be there, and yet he’d melt into a poodle the moment that man had put his hands on him. How desperate could he possibly be?

He was making a fool of himself. And he could hardly fathom what Crowley would think of finding out that Aziraphale’s cock was aching between his thighs, his face was flushed, his heart thumping. A nice pervert of a customer. The poor man deserved better than that. And Aziraphale had dared reproach _Crowley_ for his lack of manner! He wasn’t the one behaving horrendously while the other was just trying to do his job.

Aziraphale was startled by the gentle press of warm, slick hands against his oversensitive skin, scattering his thoughts. He tensed under the touch, confused and way too willing.

He heard a soft chuckle, as the touch pressed slowly down his back and looped underneath the swell of his arse before moving up again. A tangy scent reached his nostrils, pleasant and refreshing, but with something a bit sweet laced into its very core, like honeysuckle.

“You do know I’m not going to stab you in the back the moment you lower your defences, right?” Crowley murmured, soft and amused. “Relax. No wonder you’ve tied yourself up in knots. You’re making my muscles ache in sympathy.”

It was difficult to think of something, anything, between his aching cock and the gentle, swiping motion of firm hands up and down his back, so Aziraphale said nothing. Crowley didn’t seem to expect him to, anyway. He pressed his thumbs at each side of Aziraphale’s spine, dragging them up and down, up and down, before digging his knuckles into Aziraphale’s flanks.

Aziraphale did his best to breathe slowly, as Crowley rubbed oil into his skin, and even managed to relax well enough as his arms and hands were thoroughly massaged. It was difficult to stay loose, however, as he felt Crowley move around, and start to work properly on his side. Aziraphale sucked in a clicking breath that was almost a hiccup, as those strong fingers reached under his belly and dug into his hip, threateningly close to his misbehaving cock. His only saving grace was that it was trapped between his thighs, which made for a rather uncomfortable position but at least concealed his shame. Aziraphale didn’t think he could survive the mortification of Crowley finding out exactly how much he was enjoying the massage. He’d have much rather dug a hole in the ground and never seen the light of day ever again.

“I’m going to focus on your lower back now,” Crowley informed him, not very promptly in Aziraphale’s opinion, as he dug his fingers into the swell of Aziraphale’s arse. “Let me know if you are in any pain.”

Aziraphale grumbled something that could with some imagination be interpreted as an agreement, then proceeded to grit his teeth at the feeling of long, talented fingers pushing way too close to the cleft of his arse for comfort. It took really no effort at all to picture them sliding lower, under the taut rim of his trousers, and rub teasingly at his clenching hole.

_Stop that. Stop that at once._

He tried to breathe, but it was a difficult, tiresome task, as Crowley’s fingers pressed slowly into aching muscles, his body looming over Aziraphale like a shadow. Aziraphale could almost _feel_ the weight of it, just beyond reach, air swirling against his bare skin at the slightest shift of Crowley’s arms. Even the mortifying jiggling of soft flesh as Crowley stroked gently his aching sides took very little away from the simple awareness of his proximity, tall and wiry and gorgeous and impossibly warm.

The massage seemed to drag on, and on, and on, to the point that Aziraphale had been slowly accustoming himself to the unsettling bewilderment of touch by the time Crowley pulled away. He’d ended the session with some gentle stroking up and down Aziraphale’s back, and for some reason that particular feeling seemed to linger onto his skin, delicate and ghostly, like a memory.

“And that was it,” Crowley murmured, pulling the blanket up to Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Take your time, now. I’ll be in the living room.”

It took Aziraphale a moment to realise that they were done. His thoughts seemed to float into a state of relaxation so deep that Aziraphale could almost feel it into the marrow of his bones, thick and powerful, spreading into his muscles, his blood, even in the shuddering layers of his skin. He felt lethargic, almost drugged. His limbs didn’t seem particularly eager to answer his call, and Aziraphale struggled to push his body up, to coordinate the sluggish clenching and unclenching of his muscles.

He’d barely found the will to fight that pervading lassitude, when a hand splayed between his shoulder blades gently pushed him back down.

“Don’t try to get up just yet,” Crowley said, voice low but a touch sterner. “Stay there until you feel ready. Allow your body some time to recover.”

It felt a bit silly, in Aziraphale’s opinion, to hear that he needed some recovery time after a massage, but he wasn’t particularly eager to discuss the issue. His attempts at getting up had been half-hearted anyway. And he _could_ use a moment, before he got up and walked back into the world. He was feeling so wonderfully relaxed, after all. What was the rush?

“All right,” he agreed, realising with a spike of embarrassment how slurred his voice was. Well, nothing to do about that for now. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds of dripping rain and Crowley’s shuffling steps, and he realised he’d kept them that way from roughly halfway through until the very end. Even his cock had eventually thought better of that tense state of prickling arousal, and was now mostly soft, although his skin itched under the soft fleece at that jarring, forlorn lack of contact.

As his body came down from that drowsy, shuddering high, Aziraphale realised that he was cold, and he was alone. He hadn’t felt so alone in a very, very long time.

He didn’t want to think about that.

Aziraphale forced his rioting limbs into compliance and rose to his elbows, taking a weary, owlish look at his surroundings. He was alone with the sprawling vegetation and the wild whispering of a rainforest, loose and bewildered and pervasively sad. He felt distressingly close to tears, for no discernible reason, and suddenly he felt compelled to leave that place and never, ever come back. He knew, of course, that it wasn’t that room to have brought upon him such a fit of despair (or Crowley, for that matter), but the place had born witness to it, and the two felt inexplicably linked in his mind.

He almost fell from the stool as he dragged his limbs off the bed, and he tottered to the chair, forcing his body to obey his will. He got dressed quickly, with shuddering, clumsy hands, and took an extra moment to adjust his trousers. He was completely soft now, much to his relief, and Aziraphale felt that piercing sadness start to dissipate as well as he buttoned up his waistcoat.

He needed some fresh air, he deliberated. That was all.

It felt a bit jarring and a whole lot uncomfortable stepping into the high-ceiled living room. Crowley was sprawled onto the couch, his back to him, idly flitting through a few channels. He’d muted the telly, obviously unwilling to disturb his customer, and Aziraphale felt oddly touched by the gesture.

“I’m, er, here,” Aziraphale announced, fidgeting with the golden chain of his watch. He could still hear the rustle of dripping rain coming from the other room, far and soft, like a whisper. “Up on my feet and tickety-boo.”

“Tickety-boo?” Crowley snorted, lolling his head back and staring at him from an odd angle. “High praises for my craft.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale stuttered, “well, it was nice. Er, good. Yes. Very good.”

There was something a bit wicked gleaming in Crowley’s eyes, as he stared at him. Aziraphale realised with a jolt that wasn’t particularly pleasant that Crowley liked making people uncomfortable, and was enjoying Aziraphale’s floundering.

The thought gave him that flicker of anger he needed to push through.

“I’ll pay you for your services and then I’ll be out of your hair,” he added, rather stiffly. He fished his wallet from the back pocket of his trousers and pulled out eighty pounds. He wasn’t sure about how tipping worked in such a situation, and hoped it was enough. Over-tipping felt like the sort of thing that could be easily misinterpreted, in that specific setting. It wouldn’t do to let Crowley know how much exactly Aziraphale had enjoyed his massage, now, would it.

Crowley studied him for a moment longer, then got up on his feet with the sort of fluid grace that Aziraphale had never possessed in his entire life. He seemed to move as though he had no bones under his skin, just muscles and sinews.

Crowley walked around the couch and went to stand in front of Aziraphale, a bit too close for comfort, but not so close that Aziraphale could really complain about it. He was almost as tall as Aziraphale, and his eyes seemed to glitter gold under the harsh ceiling lights. He’d partly pulled up his hair in a small bun, freeing the sharp sides of his face and the coiled snake inked into his cheek. Aziraphale found it oddly appropriate.

“Your back’s a mess,” he said bluntly, as he took Aziraphale’s money. “I could fit you in for another session next Wednesday, if you like. Same time.”

Aziraphale was taken aback by the offer, even though he should’ve seen it coming. Crowley obviously could use the money, or he wouldn’t work at all, and Aziraphale could admit, albeit begrudgingly, that he was right. He felt much better now, but there was a familiar tension in his back hinting that the discomfort had been just alleviated, not banished.

That said, he wasn’t sure he could do that again. Taking his clothes off, enduring the touch. And that pervading, distilled sadness that had come straight after, like a bitter aftertaste.

And yet, he wasn’t really surprised with the answer that took shape on his tongue.

“All right. Yes.”

“Good.” Another sharp glance of those glittering eyes. “Have a good evening, then. I’ll see you next week.”

“You too. Have a lovely week.”

It took Aziraphale barely a minute to slip into his coat and grab his scarf and fedora. Then he was out of the flat, the door latching behind him, plunging him into the cool hallway with the harsh lighting and the faint smell of old bricks and mortar that seemed to pervade a good half of London’s architecture. He felt lost, for a moment, uncertain and confused about the right direction to take. Crowley’s flat was warm, warmer than Aziraphale’s own draughty home, and it felt jarring being cast out all of a sudden, like a boat lost at sea.

Aziraphale pushed his hat a bit lower onto his head, busying himself with buttoning up his coat properly and neatly tucking in his scarf. He needed to stop being so silly. It was hardly becoming on a man his age.

The evening didn’t look very dry anymore, as Aziraphale stepped outside the looming building. There was some rain threatening to spill, like dampness clinging to the very air he breathed, and he got walking rather briskly towards home. Even if the weather was promising more a drizzle than a downpour, it wouldn’t do to be caught outside by the rain without an umbrella. He valued his clothes too much for that.

He managed to get home with only a dusting of drops clinging to his shoulders, but the rain got worse as he took off his clothes and got ready for bed. It was battering the road outside his window in a steady patter as he curled up on his battered sofa, an old leather-bound copy of _The Age of Innocence_ in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. He’d debated whether to take a shower before slipping into his pyjama, but even if the oil still clinging onto his skin felt a bit sticky, he’d elected to postpone the matter to the morning after. It was already ten o’clock, after all, and he wanted to go through a few pages before turning in. In all truth, he was oddly unwilling to get rid of that foreign scent as of yet, especially with the steady pattering of rain coming from outside. It compounded into a memory he wanted to obsess over but pretended not to, allowing his senses to remember for him.

A smell. A sound. A touch.

He could barely focus on a single page in the full half-hour that followed, and when he went to bed, he dreamt. He dreamt of being touched, intimately, yet not sexually, not really, despite the obvious eroticism pervading every single feeling that dream evoked. He dreamt of steady hands tracing the shape of his spine, the swells of his buttocks, the lengths of his legs, slowly and surely, brushing the shuddering flesh of his inner thighs, the sweet hollows of his knees. It was a strange, disembodied touch, pressing down his chest, sweeping down his arms, caressing his hands. He dreamt of being hard and aching, but his cock was left alone and forsaken, as clever fingers danced along the sole of his feet, broad palms brushed the rise of his shoulder blades, enticing and electrifying and all-consuming. He felt desperately vulnerable and almost unbearably aroused, _seen_ and _touched_ and _grasped_ so deeply into his flesh that it felt like those hands were reaching right into his very bones.

He woke hard and leaking, half-consciously humping the mattress in sluggish, stuttering thrusts. He’d refused to do something as base as taking himself in hand the evening before, with the memory of Crowley’s touch still alive and bristling in his mind, but he was too sleepy and disoriented and painfully turned on to resist now. He twisted his fingers into the blankets and sank his teeth into the pillow, muffling a groan, as his hips picked up speed. It was difficult to get off like that, the old mattress not firm enough to offer much traction to his thrusts, but using his hands would’ve felt too real, too jarring. He could do this and pretend he was still too sleepy to know exactly what he was doing, what was swirling into his mind as he took his pleasure, but touching himself would betray exactly how awake he was, how conscious of his actions. It would’ve been an act of intolerable honesty.

He came a short while after, hips snapping, muscles aching, pleasure swirling into his mind and into his flesh like poison, deadly and sickly sweet. He came with the scent of Crowley’s oil into his nostrils, an orgasm so intense it was almost painful, as though it had been pulled straight from his very bones.

An uncomfortable wetness was slowly spreading into his pants as he flopped onto his back, a panting mess, staring at the ceiling. The soft light of yet another cloudy morning was pouring through his curtains, and he listened to the sound of London’s morning traffic as he waited for his breath to even out, his thundering heart to slow down. He turned his head, staring at the ancient brass clock standing on his night table. Eight o’clock. A bit late for a shower, but no one would complain, if he opened his shop a bit later than usual. His opening hours were rather arbitrary anyway, since Aziraphale did not believe in waking up before his body reached naturally a state of consciousness.

He left the bed a short time later, feeling tired and worn out, as though he hadn’t slept a blink. The dream never left him, though. He felt the ghostly touch of those hands against his skin until the time came to go to sleep again.

He was rather grateful to be spared the dreams, this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, surprise? It only took me seven months to update, after all.  
If you wonderful people who have commented and/or read this story before have forgotten all about it, well, I can’t blame you. If you do remember it, I just hope the chapter was worth the wait. I love you all and I’ve never abandoned this story, just set it aside for a while.  
I’ll be working on it regularly enough for the foreseeable future, with updates roughly once every other week (I’m keeping a flexible schedule because I am simply unable to follow a strict one). The gap between chapters could become shorter, if inspiration strikes, but it’s going to be an exception, not the rule.  
I’m planning a rough number of 10 chapters, but who knows. My track record is not exactly encouraging on the matter.


End file.
